


Lt Norris Bakes a Cake

by MCM



Category: Star Trek
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:07:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22167622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MCM/pseuds/MCM
Summary: A sequel to “Lunch, Third Shift, USS Enterprise”
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	Lt Norris Bakes a Cake

Her transfer off the Enterprise had been a shock, but Norris quite liked the Charger. Not a Constitution class vessel, so technically a demotion, and as the only medical officer on board, she didn’t have as much time to devote to burn research, but with a crew of only 50 she had time to correspond with colleagues. McCoy told her that the new grafting technique she had proposed was looking promising in field trials, and she had the supplies on hand to try it herself if anything went wrong on the away mission to the seismically active planet they were currently orbiting, or if anyone got burned on the bridge. Although that seemed to be an Enterprise special. Captain Heberts had seemed puzzled when she asked about injury risks to bridge officers. He said it was very well shielded and asked her to keep an eye on his officers’ cholesterol and PT schedules. The away crew was still studying topographic data and surface temperatures for their planned departure in 48 hours, so she had time to make a cake.

Norris liked baking. You had to be a little improvisational on a starship, if you weren’t just going to cheat and use the replicator, but it was meditative, fun, tasty and - she hoped - impressive. It was her birthday, and she was hoping to celebrate with Lt. Fresa from comms. They’s only spoken briefly, a few times, but she seemed friendly. And attractive. Cake wasn’t an obvious sexual overture, but sometimes, in Norris’s experience, it led to opportunities to make a sexual overture. Or to meet someone’s dog on home shore leave and scritch its belly. That, Norris lamented, had in some ways been a wasted opportunity. But the dog was very friendly and who could help things like that, even if they did sort of distract from one’s limited sexual opportunities before someone’s parents came home from work for a huge family welcome home celebration at which one was still, sadly, very much just a random friend no one else knew who had trailed along to distract someone from their family and not a new lover, oops. No time for lamenting missed opportunities now! Fresa had a very attractive nose, and, if plied with cake, might reveal personal information like her first name. 48 hours was more than enough time for baking, and even cooling and frosting, with plenty of time left over for inviting people to drop by the medlab for cake.

The Charger’s mess was replicator-based, so Norris was relying on re-purposed lab equipment. Petri dishes could withstand heat and made oddly-sized, but perfectly functional cupcake dishes. Or, she pondered, adorable tiny cake layers. Laker cake was definitely fancier than cupcakes. Experiments sounded fun. The incubator went up to 375F, intended for safely preserving Kyrullian reproductive pods, but there weren’t any egg-layers on board. And she’d picked up groceries during last week’s liberty on Deep Space 7 - flour, sugar, butter, milk, egg substitute. You didn’t get chickens in space. 

Three hours later she had an adorable tiny 12-layer cake with blue frosting, and flour dabbed artistically on her uniform shirt. That hadn’t been entirely intentional, but Norris found it helpful to have a prop to get conversation started. She stashed her cake in the lab fridge, and headed to the observation deck. She’d seen Fresa there five times. Not that Norris was stalking her! She just happened to have noticed Fresa on the observation deck or going into it on five seperate occasions when she’d been casually hanging around near the PT deck and the mess hall which were adjacent to the observation deck on while familiarizing herself with the Charger and its facilities and crew. And wondering if she could run into Fresa. Norris hated having crushes, it was so embarrassing. But this time there was flour on her shirt and adorable tiny layer cake in her lab fridge. And also, there was Fresa. Right there. Not on the observation deck, just outside the med lab. Damn! Norris hadn’t had time to rehearse her conversation opener yet. What do you say when you want to tell someone you barely know that it’s your birthday and you made a cake just to stalk them with and the cake is lemon because you forgot to think about flavor when you were shopping and the lab replicator can do lemon zest and ohmygod really she’s right there. Now. Waving. Stopping. Saying things. What is she even saying? It sounds like maybe . . . 

“Hi Norris!”  
Oh that. Right. 

“What’s on your shirt?”

Was there something on her shirt? What was on her shirt? She looked down, flustered. Ah. The flour.   
“Um. It’s flour it’s my birthday and I made a cake, it’s like, cute and also blue even though it’s lemon I just really like blue it’s in the lab fridge do you want some?”

Fresa frowned, “Are you OK? You just turned bright red and you sound like you’re gasping for air, do you have a fever? Should I activate the emergency medical hologram?”

Norris forced herself to take a breath. Slowly. And willed the red to go out of her face, although in her experience, that would take at least 15 minutes. “No.” She paused and took another breath for good measure. “I was playing around in the lab and I made a cake.” Breath three, Norris felt like she deserved a merit badge. Not that Starfleet distributed merit badges, but it should, it would be good for morale, and they should give her one. “Do you want to try some?” Breath four. Proper respiration was crucial for crew efficiency. Everyone should breathe all the time. Norris was doing really well.

Fresa was smiling. “Is that what smells like lemon? I love lemon.”


End file.
